1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to physiological biometrics, including automated fingerprint/palm print identification systems (AFISs), and in particular to a system and method for improving the method for scanning fingerprints and reducing the user-side management load for submitting digital fingerprints to major AFISs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Physiological biometric data is used in forensic science to identify suspects, victims and other persons. For example, fingerprints collected from a crime scene, or from items of evidence from a crime, can be used to determine who touched the surface in question. Fingerprints are the primary source of physiological biometric data used for identification purposes today. Fingerprint identification emerged as an important system within various law enforcement agencies in the late 19th century. This system replaced anthropometric measurements as a more reliable method for identifying persons having a prior record, often under an alias name, in a criminal record repository. The science of fingerprint identification stands out among all other forensic sciences for many reasons, including its superiority and reliability.
Fingerprint identifications produce more positive identifications of persons worldwide daily than any other human identification procedure. For example, U.S. Government departments and agencies identify over 70,000 persons daily, mostly with AFIS. A large percentage of these identifications, including approximately 92% of US Visit identifications, are affected in “lights-out,” fully-automated computer identification processes with high levels of successful identifications, i.e., “matches,” typically using only two fingerprints.
Fingerprint identification is the process of comparing questioned and known friction skin ridge impressions (e.g. minutiae) from fingers or palms or even toes to determine if the impressions are from the same finger or palm. The flexibility of friction ridge skin means that no two finger or palm prints are ever exactly alike, i.e. identical in every detail; even two impressions recorded immediately after each other. Fingerprint identification occurs when an expert or computer system determines that two friction ridge impressions originated from the same finger, palm, toe, etc., to the exclusion of all others.
A known print is the intentional recording of the friction ridges, usually with black printers ink rolled across a contrasting white background, typically a white card. These cards can be scanned and the fingerprints digitally uploaded from the scanned images. Friction ridges can also be recorded digitally using the Live Scan system adopted and required by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). A latent print is the chance reproduction of the friction ridges deposited on the surface of an item. Latent prints are often fragmentary and may require chemical methods, powder, or alternative light sources in order to be visualized.
When friction ridges come in contact with a surface that is receptive to a print, material on the ridges, such as perspiration, oil, grease, ink, etc. can be transferred to the item. The factors which affect friction ridge impressions are numerous, thereby requiring fingerprint examiners to undergo extensive and objective study in order to be trained to competency. Pliability of the skin, deposition pressure, slippage, the matrix, the surface, and the development medium are just some of the various factors which can cause a latent print to appear differently from the known recording of the same friction ridges. Indeed, the conditions of friction ridge deposition are unique and never duplicated. This is another reason why extensive and objective study is necessary for examiners to achieve competency.
Existing AFIS hardware and software automatically authenticate and identify individuals using their fingerprints. Search programs such as the Tracker program line by AFIX Technologies, Inc. of Pittsburgh, Kans. can be used to take a fingerprint image and conduct a search from a major database. A fingerprint of a person comprises a distinctive and unique ridge pattern structure. For authentication or identification purposes, this ridge pattern structure can be characterized by endings and bifurcations of the individual ridges. These features are known as minutiae. Automatic authentication systems include the DoD Automatic Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which is able to search all ten finger positions, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). These databases contain large numbers of known prints. In order for a forensic fingerprint scanning system to be able to submit latent submissions to either the ABIS or the IAFIS, certain qualifications must be met.
The primary features required of forensic fingerprint scanning and submission systems for DoD ABIS submissions of latent prints are compliance standards, including file format, image size, image quality, and other requirements. The DoD ABIS now requires Live Scan electronic fingerprint scanning for fingerprint scan submissions in place of the more traditional ink and paper. Using the Live Scan AFIS for identification purposes instantly compares the scanned fingerprints of an individual with the connected national database.
Likewise, IAFIS systems have their own requirements for submission, including the “penetration value,” which is an estimation of the amount of the database's total number of records to be searched. Search limiters are placed upon all searches (e.g., finger position, sex and age) in order to reduce the estimated number of records searched. Proper search limiting can reduce the number of records searched to below 30% penetration value of the total database population. However; with latent fingerprints much of this limiting information is unknown, and as such forensic examiners often submit multiple searches to IAFIS systems with only certain finger positions selected, which increases the load on the IAFIS database. A common practice for reducing the search population is to send a separate e-mail for each finger and thumb, resulting in the submission of five e-mails in order to create a penetration of 20% for each submission. The problem is that this practice results in the search operator performing multiple searches for a single identification. A tremendous amount of file management on both ends of a latent fingerprint search is required, and until now this problem has yet to be effectively addressed.
The methods of U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,937, which is assigned to a common assignee and is incorporated herein by reference, provide additional relevant background regarding AFIS systems and methods commonly used to search major fingerprint database records to find results, and also provides a unique and useful approach to performing such a search within a fingerprint database.